Ghosts
by Ashlee Pond
Summary: Clara Oswald doesn't believe in ghosts. So it made sense that she didn't really notice, at first, the ghost of the girl with the bright red hair and the legs that went on forever, lingering in the TARDIS.


Clara Oswald doesn't believe in ghosts. So it made sense that she didn't really notice, at first, the ghost of the girl with the bright red hair and the legs that went on forever, lingering in the TARDIS.

She had told the Doctor once that she was not just a replacement, a bargain basement stand in for someone else, and she had meant it wholeheartedly. And he had assured her, over time, that that wasn't the case, not at all, and that he travelled with _her, _Clara Oswald, because it was _her _company he enjoyed. It had turned out, in the end, that the ghost they had been referring to in that exchange was in fact a version of Clara herself.

The ghost she was sensing now was someone else entirely, and an altogether scarier thing to consider.

And it crept up on her, this ghost. She didn't notice all the individual clues it left until it was there, right on top of her, and then she wondered how she'd ever gone this long without seeing it.

* * *

><p>The most prevalent clue, of course, was the glasses. They didn't look like anything special, just a round pair with a tortoiseshell coloured frame, but the Doctor treated them like they were made of the most precious material in the universe. They were always there, perched on the bridge of his nose, tucked safely in his jacket pocket, ready for whenever he wanted to look smart or read a particularly thick book, even though Clara knew that his eyesight was perfectly fine.<p>

She caught him one day, sitting in the library with an open book in his lap and the glasses in his hand, just staring at them. He had this little crease between his eyebrows, a slight turn to the corner of his lips as though he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and he was just _staring, _as though he could see an entirely different world through those lenses.

She stopped mid-step, the question she had meant to ask poised on her lips but no longer forthcoming. He looked so far away, so lost in his memories, that she didn't dare interrupt. She paused to watch him for a moment, until the feeling that she was intruding became too uncomfortable to bear, and then she backed out of the room and quietly shut the door behind herself. She didn't think he'd even noticed her come in.

* * *

><p>She was in the kitchen when the Doctor came skidding in, arms pinwheeling as he tried and failed to regain his balance. He slammed sideways into the kitchen counter, let out a howl of pain and grabbed Clara by the shoulders, spinning the two of them around and into the centre of the room.<p>

"Clara!"

"Doctor!"

He leant in close, breathless and sort of flushed in a way that she wished she didn't find quite so attractive. "What's for tea?"

She blinked. "That's what you've come running in here for?"

"Yes. Got a problem with that?"

All she could do was laugh.

He laughed too, spun away from her and over to the fridge and opened the door with a flourish that was entirely unnecessary. "What do you feel like? I have a craving for something exotic, I'm thinking, maybe I could invent another new dish..." But suddenly his mirth died, stopped stone dead in the middle of a ramble, and Clara felt her shoulders tense as his hunched over. He said quietly to the inside of the fridge, "This isn't funny."

She took a single step forward, held out a hand, almost but not quite touching his back. "Doctor?"

He stepped back and yelled at the ceiling, "That is _not funny!_"

He brushed past Clara without another word, stomping from the room with a rage that she couldn't reconcile with any visible source. When she peeked into the open fridge, after all, all she could see was a packet of fish fingers and a carton of custard.

* * *

><p>"Doctor have you seen my -" Clara stopped at the entrance to the console room, question answered before she could even finish asking it. "Book."<p>

The Doctor was stopped in the middle of the room, holding _Summer Falls _in his hands, the worn, cream coloured cover facing her as he read its contents. At her appearance he started, fumbling the book and losing his place.

"Sorry," he said, so distractedly that Clara couldn't even be sure it was her he was apologising to. "Sorry, it was sitting on the console and I... I had to take a peek, you know, just a little one, to check..."

She raised an eyebrow as his voice trailed into silence. "Check what?"

"The ending."

"You read it then?"

He shook his head slowly, turning the book around and running his fingers gently over the cover. In the light reflecting from the console the Doctor's eyes looked watery. "I hate endings."

Clara walked over to him and folded her arms over her chest. "It's my favourite, that book."

His smile was so small and so sincere that she felt her heart stutter at the mere sight of it, even as he kept his gaze locked firmly on the cover. "Is it? That's funny."

"How's it funny?" she asked, thoroughly curious now.

He looked up at her, finally, and she saw a shadow pass over his expression, an emotion that she couldn't quite place. He was still wearing that same smile, somewhat shaky and entirely reminiscent, when he handed the book back over to her. "Because, we're all stories in the end."

She took the book back, as perplexed as ever. Before she could question him further, however, he was spinning to the other side of the console, slamming a hand on a button that promptly started beeping and pulling a lever down with slightly more force than usual.

"Where do you feel like going this week? I was thinking perhaps we could stop by the sixth quadrant of the Kasterntgarble Galaxy, they have _great _popcorn there -"

And Clara knew that the time for questions had passed.

She re-read the book that night, when she crawled into bed after a mad dash through a field of alien corn that was simultaneously being popped by some invading aliens. Still plucking kernels out of her hair, she let her eyes linger over the familiar words, read so many times now that they were etched into her subconscious. Now that she thought about it, she could clearly see shades of the Doctor scattered throughout the pages.

She knew that the Doctor had had other companions before her, of course; she'd seen projections of a few of them a while ago, so kindly provided by the TARDIS. She flipped back through her memories of those girls, their faces almost blurring together in her mind. She wondered if one of them had been Amelia Williams.

She fell asleep that night dreaming of a frozen town and a little girl with bright red hair, lost on the ice-covered sea.

* * *

><p>It wasn't until his final moments that she finally got confirmation of the ghost's name - <em>Amelia. <em>The first face that face saw. And, Clara assumed from the way he looked so longingly and lovingly into the air, also the last. How important that girl must be, she thought, to be the last thought to ever run through that Doctor's mind. _  
><em>

* * *

><p>She really didn't need any more distractions at that particular moment in time, when she was tied up and about to be killed by some kind of weird clockwork robot things, stuck with a brand new and frankly quite bratty Doctor, struggling to pick up the sonic that was rolling on the floor due to his bad throw.<p>

She was so focused on her task that she almost didn't even hear him, let alone process what he'd said; "It's times like this I miss Amy."

Only half thinking, she replied out of instinct, "Who?"

But the moment was over then, she had the sonic and from then on out she was running on pure fear and adrenaline, and it wasn't until much, much later when she was sitting across from this new Doctor in a little coffee shop in Glasgow that the significance of the moment sunk in.

"Who's Amy?" she asked, deciding that the time for pretense was well and truly over.

His crazy eyebrows furrowed and he stared at her over his mug with an intensity that was almost unsettling. "Who told you about Amelia?"

And immediately, all of Clara's fears were confirmed. She forced herself to push through despite the pain she could see in his eyes. "Amy, Amelia... she was your companion, before me. Wasn't she?"

He sighed heavily, and Clara could see old hurts in those new old eyes. "Aye."

"I'm sorry that you lost her," she said, sincerely.

He rubbed his temples, looking even older than before. "Not your fault. You helped save her, once, actually. Or one of your echoes did, to be exact."

"Really?" Clara stretched her mind, tried to reach for memories that she knew weren't all easily accessible in this version of her memory - although she dreamt of them, sometimes, those other selves all running around through time and space and sacrificing and sacrificing and sacrificing.

She was almost startled when the Doctor next spoke, so much time had passed. "Mhmm. Saved my life, and hers, and her husband's."

"You travelled with a married couple?" she asked, eyebrow arched. That, she felt, was a much safer topic of conversation than which of her echoes had been involved.

From the Doctor's exaggerated response, she may have been mistaken. "On and off. Not all the time, you know. All tongues, married couples. Blergh." He shivered dramatically, as though shaking off a slimy substance, face crinkling up, and through the wrinkles Clara could see a glimpse of the man she'd just spoken to on the phone.

She giggled into her coffee. "All tongues, eh?"

His nose twitched.

She crossed her ankles under the table and said experimentally, "So. You miss her, obviously."

He had the nerve to look affronted. "Obviously? What are you -"

"Stop." Clara held up a hand. "You couldn't remember a bloody thing today - you couldn't remember what a bedroom was, or even _who I am, _but you remembered her. You said, 'I miss Amy.' Obviously she's still on your mind. And I've kind of being piecing a few things together, you know, over these past three years."

"Have you now?" He was starting to look uncomfortable.

"I have."

"Well," he said, and tugged on his collar as though he needed some air. "My comment today, you know, it was - she has these _legs, _you see, and you are on the shorter side -"

Clara once again thought of those images the TARDIS had shown her of past companions. The leggy ginger who had inspired awe from the rather short brunette came to the front of her mind. "Right, yeah, I get it. She had long legs," she said, saving him from further stuttering embarrassment.

"They weren't just long, they were -" The Doctor promptly dropped his waving hands to his lap as Clara glared at him. "Right. Sorry."

"What I mean, Doctor, is I can't compete with your old companions any more than I can compete with a ghost." She forced herself to keep her voice steady and her gaze locked on his.

He was absolutely silent for a moment, just staring at her from under those bushy, angry eyebrows. And then he smiled. "Of course, Clara. I promise you, this is not a competition."

She regarded him warily, but saw nothing but truth in his expression. "Okay then."

"Okay."

He took another sip of his coffee. "Okay."

She miraculously managed to keep a straight face, although she was almost certain he noticed the corners of her lips twitching up. "Okay."

"Now. When did you say you had to be back?"

* * *

><p>It was late at night, according to Clara's body clock, when she found herself on the edge of one of the staircases leading down to the subtly redecorated console room. She had been searching for the kitchen, struck by a sudden craving for ice-cream, when she had heard the lure of voices, one tantalising unrecognisable.<p>

She stopped at the top of the stairs and leant forward to peer down into the room, hoping that the Doctor wouldn't notice her presence and stop whatever he was doing.

He was standing by the console, just standing, completely still, and talking. At first she thought he was talking to himself, but then she spotted her - a ghostly figure, sort of translucent around the edges and not quite fully _there. _She looked like she was interacting with the Doctor, though, smiling and chatting away at the right times. Clara recognised her immediately.

She managed to catch the end of her sentence and was surprised - but at the same time, not surprised at all - to hear that she had a Scottish accent. So _that _was where that had come from. "- I mean, can you even imagine?"

The Doctor chuckled and answered in a similar brogue, "Oh, Amy. Of course I can imagine it."

She flipped her long, red hair over her shoulder and turned to smile at someone off camera, maybe her husband - because that's what this was, Clara realised as the footage suddenly changed scene. It was a projection, just filmed footage. Amy was dressed differently now, gone from one short skirt to another, and she was dancing to some absurdly loud music playing in the background. Clara recognised the tune, it had been popular on the radio a few years back.

She decided now was the time to beat a hasty retreat. She turned to go, and her foot hit the floor with a squeak at the exact moment that the music stopped. She froze, held her breath and hoped against hope that the Doctor hadn't heard, hadn't noticed her prying.

"Clara." It was just her name, but it made her heart sink.

She slowly spun on one foot. "I'm sorry, I didn't -"

But he was smiling up at her, more soft and sad than she'd ever seen this face before. All he said was, "You alright?"

"Yeah, yep, I'm, ah, I'm totally fine. All good. Sorry, for interrupting. Sorry." She stumbled over the words, pausing for a second before awkwardly waving and turning to go. She heard the click of the projection being turned off as she went.

And then the Doctor's new voice, sounding more Scottish than ever in the ensuing silence. "Good night."

* * *

><p>When Clara woke up the next morning there was a note on her bedside table. <em>For my impossible girl. Thank you for looking after her when I couldn't.<em>

It was stuck to a newer, but still second-hand edition of her book; the anthology was titled, _Summer Falls and Other Stories. _

The foreword was by Amelia Williams, and in it she wrote to the Doctor of a mysterious lady who asked her to pass on a message. _Run you clever boy, and remember._

Clara thought of that echo of herself, being drawn to the misplaced Amelia Williams. She wondered if it hadn't always been this way, with hers and Amy's lives always twining around each others but never quite properly intersecting. She wondered if she'd always be chasing her ghost.

But there was more to the Doctor's note, scribbled on the other side in his unique handwriting. _I'm travelling with you now, Clara Oswald, and you alone. I'm sorry if I ever seemed to have forgotten that, because I assure you I haven't._

Clara Oswald might not have had legs that never stopped, and she might not have been travelling with the Doctor for as long as Amy Williams had, but she realised, now, that that wasn't the point. _She_ was travelling with the Doctor _now. __Her _face was the first face _this _Doctor had seen, and he wanted her to stay, enough to have almost begged her when they'd landed in Glasgow. Amy's ghost might still be lingering, but for the first time Clara felt that she could live up to her memory.

She left the room with a smile on her face. "Doctor! What was that you were saying the other day about a planet full of coffee shops?"

The note was tucked carefully inside the front cover of the book.

* * *

><p>...<p>

...

**a.n. **i don't know what this is meant to be. twelve referenced amy and my heart broke all over again even though i absolutely adore clara. so. yeah. everything in here is from canon. clara saw a projection of amy in the minisode clara in the tardis (i think that's what it's called?) and in the foreword to summer falls and other stories amy does write to the doctor of one of clara's echoes following her because she felt she needed protecting, and asking her to pass on the message. let me know what you think, pretty please!


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